Radiohead Tour Spurs a Great Debate – Troby’s Bar

Radiohead No Surprises

The Radiohead Tour at the AAC Begs the Question. Now, You Answer.

If you didn’t hear who came into town on Monday night at the American Airlines Center, it’s okay you’ll become cool one day. Well, the super band of the week in Dallas was Radiohead. They came into town with a sold out crowd that was already waiting outside at the early hours of the morning to get into the AAC, so they could get their spot in the general admission section. As Radiohead has always done things differently from their album releases, working with ticket brokers, their general admission section was no different. The band was doing a number system like you were standing in line at the DMV, so the sooner you got to the arena the earlier you were allowed into the big pit area.

A band like Radiohead would be considered in that upper echelon of arena rock groups like Coldplay, Madonna, and Kanye West/Jay-Z that can actually sell out an entire arena. I know this by simply doing a quick search on StubHub and those tickets were in the Hundreds of Dollars. So when a band like them comes into town we all expect a mega show, not just 4 guys on a stage with taped up guitar chords and half stacks with touring stickers on them. We expect a full all out mind-blowing shock-your-brain-for-the-next-week type of show. So Radiohead wouldn’t want to disappoint, right? Especially with every new show coming into town showing off some sort of new state of the art technology (Watch The Throne Tour, those big glowing cubes, damn those were cool). But why is this a new standard for concerts? Why does a band that started playing small clubs and dark places feel like they must have a million dollar tour? Is it because they feel that we have dumbed down so much to rock shows that we need big screens, lasers, and flames shooting out? As a diehard fan of all music and concerts, I sure hope this is not the case. Maybe that is why I like the shows at smaller venues like House of Blues, Palladium Ballroom, or even my favorite The Prophet Bar/The Door for the extra personal indie band shows.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not some hipster that says bands have “sold out” to the man by doing this or that, no, no, no sir, I congratulate those bands that have mega tours and super light shows, hell I even go crazy at them. That’s the ultimate goal is to make a career and be known around the world. But I still love to go to a show with 500 – 2000 people where the band is so close I can see him close his eyes when he hits that special word in the song as he remembers the memory of why he wrote the song. That’s what I like, the music and all of its intimate moments. So the debate, do you like Big Rock Shows or Intimate Rock Shows?

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Tags American Airlines Center Arena rock Coldplay Dallas Feature House of Blue House of Blues Madonna Musical ensemble Palladium Ballroom Radiohead StubHub United States